www.ssoar.info The methodological standpoint of the "économie des

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The methodological standpoint of the "économie
des conventions"
Diaz-Bone, Rainer
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Historical Social Research, Vol. 36 — 2011 — No. 4, 43-63
The Methodological Standpoint of the
“économie des conventions”
Rainer Diaz-Bone ∗
Abstract: »Der methodologische Standpunkt der ‘économie des conventions’«.
The article presents the methodological position of the French approach of the
“économie des conventions” (economics of convention, in short: EC). EC is
introduced as a new form of a pragmatist institutionalism, which assumes ca-
pable actors, a plurality of conventions and different forms of rationality. EC
explains collective quality constructions and regards conventions as solutions
for collectives to deal with uncertainty. EC criticizes mainstream economics
because of its notion of rationality and its methodological individualism. The
article focuses on the methodological standpoint of EC. It is argued that the
influences from pragmatism and structuralism place this new institutionalism
beyond pragmatism and structuralism and that its methodological position can
be regarded as a “complex pragmatic situationalism”. The situation is the unit
of analysis. In situations pluralities of conventions have an impact as possible
logics of coordination and evaluation. The EC has a strong tradition in empiri-
cal historical analysis of institutional forms and socio-cognitive categories. It is
argued that parallels to the Weberian methodology exist. But EC supposes that
ideal types are common knowledge also to the ordinary actors. At the end it is
the specific complex methodological position of EC that places it also beyond
the opposition of methodological individualism and methodological holism.
Keywords: économie des conventions, institutionalism, economic sociology,
pragmatism, structuralism, socio-cognition, actor-network-theory, collective
cognitive dispositives, Max Weber, Luc Boltanski, Laurent Thévenot, Robert
Salais, Pierre Bourdieu.
1. Introduction
The French approach of the économie des conventions (in short: EC) can be
regarded as a new institutionalism for the social and historical analysis of the
plurality of action frameworks in economic worlds (Storper and Salais 1997).1
∗ Address all communications to: Rainer Diaz-Bone, Soziologisches Seminar, Universität
Luzern, Frohburgstrasse 3, Postfach 4466, 6002 Luzern, Switzerland;
e-mail: [email protected].
I would like to thank Christian Bessy and Robert Salais for commenting a former version of
this article.
1 For a short introduction (German) to this approach in this journal see Diaz-Bone (2009a).
See also the volumes of Thévenot (ed.) (1986), Salais and Thévenot (eds.) (1986),
Boltanski and Thévenot (eds.) (1989), Salais, Chatel, and Rivaud-Danset (eds.) (1998),

44
The EC-approach was developed as a transdisciplinary institutionalism which
integrates economical, sociological and historical perspectives.2 In this contri-
bution the methodological standpoint of EC will be discussed. It is argued that
EC combines pragmatist positions with structuralist perspectives.3 Also EC
collapses the opposition of methodological individualism (in short: MI) and
methodological holism (in short: MH)4 in an innovative way. Therefore, the
methodological standpoint can be regarded as a complex pragmatist situation-
alism.5 The development of this new methodological position was prepared
through by the reception of pragmatism and the later structuralist sociology of
Pierre Bourdieu. Both enable the EC-approach to develop a third way between
MI and MH.
In this contribution the notion of methodological standpoint is used to de-
note a broader understanding of methodology. As Herbert Blumer (1969) has
shown, a complete social science approach (as symbolic interactionism) entails
not only research techniques and instruments for data analysis. To work out a
methodological standpoint means to start from its theoretical concepts which
include assumptions of the ontological reality of the social world. An empirical
approach has to consider the theoretical assumptions “on what there is” and
how this is observable. In order to be coherent, the practice of empirical social
research has to take these assumptions into account in its instrumental and
interpretational aspects. Thus, methodology can be conceived as that realm of
an approach which develops coherent strategies for empirical research. So, one
can speak of another kind of holism: methodic holism. Here the term methodic
holism is used to distinguish it from the notion of methodological holism. The
latter denotes a logic of explanation – while the former denotes the relation of
theory and the methods which are suitable for the research driven by this the-
ory. Methodic holism means the existing coherence between (a) theoretical
assumptions about the ontology of the social, (b) the empirical research strate-
gies how to access social practices/social structures and (c) the deployed re-
search instruments of data gathering and data interpretation. In order to produce
Storper and Salais (1997), Favereau and Lazega (eds.) (2002), Orléan (ed.) (2004) and Ey-
mard-Duvernay (ed.) (1987, 2006a, 2006b).
2 See for systematic presentations of the institutional argumentations (Diaz-Bone 2009a),
Bessy (2002a, 2011), Bessy and Favereau (2003), Storper and Salais (1997).
3 This perspective is also offered by Lazega and Favereau (2002).
4 MH sometimes is denoted also as methodological collectivism.
5 The current discussion how to sketch out the methodological position and how to name it is
more or less inconsistent respectively ambiguous. Bessy (2002a) labels the methodological
position as “complex methodological individualism”, Vercueil (1997) speaks of “methodo-
logical individualism of the type of a relational totality”, Defalvard (1992) labels it a “mod-
ernized holism”, Raveaud (2008) characterizes EC as a “methodological holism”, Postel
(2003) labels it as “modernized methodological individualism”, Combemale (2001) argues
that EC has a classical position of MI, Rose (1990) speaks of an MI in “a not extreme
form”.

45
valid research findings an empirical approach has to respect this methodic
holism. Otherwise, the ways the research objects are constructed and data are
produced are incompatible with theoretical notions. The reason for this is that
instruments and research practices have to respect the ontological claims made
by the theory and have to fulfill the claims how reality can be “measured”. It
has to be pointed out that there is a plurality of possible methodic holisms. One
reason is that it depends on the chosen theory. Another reason is that one can
imagine different possible sets of compatible instruments that enable to trans-
late one theory into coherent research practice. One can argue that the meth-
odological standpoint of EC realizes this kind of methodic holism.6
But this position has to be systematically reconstructed from the writings of
the representatives of EC. The approach of the économie des conventions has
been formed almost three decades ago in the Paris Region. Most writings about
EC regard the issue “L’économie des conventions” of the economic journal
Revue économique (40 (2) from 1989) as the “official” foundational document
of this approach. But there have been some important publications before
which also contribute to the methodological positioning of EC (as Salais and
Thévenot 1986; Thévenot 1986), so these will be included in this review here
as well as contributions to the discussion about the methodological standpoint
of EC since the 1990s.7 The reason for the need to reconstruct the methodo-
logical position derives from the very few remarks in existing papers from this
approach addressing the topic of the underlying methodological position. As
Hervé Defalvard (1992, 127) mentioned, the collective introduction (Dupuy et
al. 1989) of the foundational issue of Revue économique only comprises two
paragraphs addressing the methodological standpoint of EC. In 1989 it is stated
by the six authors of this programmatic introduction (Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Fran-
çois Eymard-Duvernay, Olivier Favereau, André Orléan, Robert Salais and
Laurent Thévenot) that the new approach is still committed to MI but includes
collective entities and collective objects. This methodological statement in this
introductory article is not precise enough.
In the 1990s the discussion about the methodological standpoint intensified,
starting with contributions from outside and from the margins of this approach
(as Defalvard 1992, 2000; Vercueil 1997; Postel 1998; Combemale 2001;
Raveaud 2005, 2008).8
6 Hervé Defalvard (1992, 131) uses the notion of “coupling” (French “couplage”) to depict
this methodic holism between methods used and the ontological claims which are entailed
(explicitly or implicitly) in the theoretical thinking of the EC. This is much more than just a
kind of loose affinity.
7 See for a German written systematic outline of the EC-approach Diaz-Bone (forthcoming).
8 It is to mention that in the French philosophy of economics and in the French social phi-
losophy there is an intense discussion about the epistemological foundations of economics
and society. Here the positions of Arnaud Berthoud, Vincent Descombes (1997) and Pierre
Livet (1994, 2005) are influential for EC.

46
This article introduces first some theoretical notions to work out central on-
tological claims of the EC. Then the discussion about the methodological
standpoint of the EC will be reconsidered. There are several evident influences
stemming from the French context in which the EC was developed – namely
the pragmatic turn in French social sciences since the 1980s (Dosse 1999;
Nachi 2006; Corcuff 2007).9 Here, the so-called actor network theory (devel-
oped by Bruno Latour and Michel Callon, in short: ANT) co-evolved with the
EC. Together with ANT the EC-approach includes objects and cognitive de-
vices in its theorizing. But also structuralist thinking was (and is) still promi-
nent. The specific methodological position of EC as a “third way” between MI
and MH integrates methodological positions of pragmatism and structuralism
in a new way.10 After that the Weberian approach is used at the end as refer-
ence because Weber introduces an interpretative methodology not only for
sociology but also for socio-historical analysis. It is argued on the one side, that
EC’s methodological position shares important positions with the methodologi-
cal position of Max Weber. This is one of the reasons why the approach of EC
is highly relevant for socio-historical research not only in the field of economic
sociology or economics. But on the other side the EC differs from Weber’s
epistemological and methodological positions.
2. EC as a New Pragmatist Institutionalism
Since the 1980s, the approach of the économie des conventions was developed
in the Paris Region. It can be regarded as a research-network between econo-
mists, sociologists, statisticians, and historians who have worked out a new and
heterodox (to mainstream economy) approach of a pragmatist institutionalism
(and still continue to do so). The EC starts with a break with neoclassical eco-
nomics by stating that actors are not isolated individuals with an a priori ration-
ality but need a social environment and capacities to apply a plurality of possi-
ble rationalities. For the EC the name giving notion of convention is important.
Conventions are not to be confused with arbitrary “standards” or traditional
customs or ad hoc agreements. Conventions are understood as shared interper-
sonal logics how to coordinate and to evaluate actions, individuals and objects
in situations of uncertainty (Eymard-Duvernay 1989; Thévenot 1989; Salais
1989, 2007; Storper and Salais 1997; Diaz-Bone 2009a). Conventions are
socio-cultural resources for the coordination between actors. The EC relates
these convention-based coordinations to the collective intentionality towards
9 For a systematic overview of French pragmatist sociology see also the contribution in the
book series “Raisons pratiques” which has been published by the Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris since 1984 and has now more than 20 volumes.
10 For this perspective of a new methodological position or a third way see also Dosse (1999),
Livet (2005) and Raveaud (2008).